RBK reports: Deputy head of the State Duma committee on information policy Anton Gorelkin commented on the proposal by the Bank of Russia to include the stablecoin USDT in the list of cryptocurrencies available for public trading on Russian exchanges.
"With the dollar stablecoin owned by the offshore company Tether, it isn’t that simple. Yes, this cryptocurrency is very popular among investors, but it’s important to understand that it’s called a 'digital dollar' for a reason. To ensure the stability of their token, USDT holders have become, step by step, one of the largest holders of U.S. Treasury bonds, taking on obligations to closely cooperate with U.S. authorities — including with regard to sanctions pressure," — Gorelkin wrote on his channel.
He reminded that in 2025 Tether “practically paralyzed the operations of the Garantex crypto exchange,” freezing tokens in its wallets.
“The damage to the exchange and investors was estimated at the time at 2.5 billion rubles. Tether acted not as a private crypto service, but as a full-fledged body of the financial and political system of the United States. Where is the guarantee that this story won’t repeat when USDT comes into circulation on legal Russian crypto exchanges? And if we think more broadly, does our crypto industry even need a rigid peg to the US dollar?”, Gor elkin continued.
In addition, the deputy separately noted that the Solana (SOL) token did not make it into the list of coins proposed by the Central Bank, although “many analysts believed it had every chance.”
The first sound statement by members of parliament regarding the creation of their own exchanges, depositories, and custodians for stablecoins in Russia.
Over the past year, the turnover of the Tether stablecoin exceeded $33 trillion, and it would be strange if the U.S. financial authorities did not control this sector of the economy.
With the help of USDT, many countries and companies bypass sanctions and do not pay taxes. Turnover in the shadow economy in the stablecoin segment exceeds that of the ordinary fiat system.
Naturally, the main interest of the U.S. special services lies in monitoring the shadow turnover of the surrogate of the U.S. dollar. And there’s nothing to replace USDT with. No alternatives are in sight for the foreseeable future. USDT is a Trojan horse of the crypto market—a digital dollar that the U.S. has officially rejected.
